Roscoe Mitchell Sextet

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

The Roscoe Mitchell Sextet is the group with which the saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell recorded the album Sound in 1966. Mitchell was born in 1940 in Chicago. As a boy he played saxophone and clarinet, and his brother Norman introduced him to jazz. In 1965 he was one of the first members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the AACM, an organisation of Chicago musicians who wanted to make new music.

Music and breakthrough

On Sound, Mitchell, the trumpeter Lester Bowie, the tenor saxophonist Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, the bassist Malachi Favors, the trombonist Lester Lashley and the drummer Alvin Fielder played. The album departed from the exuberant free jazz of New York, partly because the group used unusual sounds and silences. It is an early document of the Chicago avant-garde.

Influence

From this circle grew the Art Ensemble of Chicago, which performed under that name from 1969 and between 1969 and 1971 lived and played in Europe. Mitchell later founded, among others, the Creative Arts Collective, the Sound Ensemble and the Note Factory and also worked in classical music. Critics call him a key figure in avant-garde jazz. The music of the sextet demands attentive listening: space, small sounds and sudden outbursts stand side by side.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1966Sound

In School of Rock

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• After Hours: Session 3^NL Reader